Snark It Up, FuzzBall!

In the realm of fan-fiction, there’s a category known as PWP (“Plot? What plot?”), and it’s used as an excuse or justification to write a snippet that is nothing more than filthy, filthy sex.

Which is okay (Well, unless the writer can’t write. Then it’s just excrutiating to read.).

I have a feeling that Judge Parker’s Barreto is developing the visual counterpart to that.

Which is also okay.

Why on earth do we continue to follow Judge Parker?  While there are occasional glitters and glimmers of pulchritude (sexy legal secretary Gloria; sexy Scottsdale homicide detective Heidi; sexy (but dead) pole-dancer and murderer Dixie Julep), the one thing that keeps the attention riveted and the juices flowing is….

Abbey Spencer!

Abbey in a bathrobe.
Abbey in Daisy Dukes.
Abbey in a riding outfit.
Abbey in a flannel shirt.
Abbey with her hand up a nice chicken.
Abbey in a black strapless number.

Yeah, like I was going to say Sam Driver (nice body, but not shown off enough).

The current story line focuses on Alan Parker’s retirement, Randy Parker’s investiture as the new Judge Parker, Sam Driver’s reluctant acceptance to be Alan’s book agent and Abbey Spencer grinding around the celebration in the aforementioned black strapless number.  Only there’s not enough of the last option, so here’s more:

Even though Sam and Abbey are Sophie’s adoptive parents, they do take good care of her and take their parenting responsibilities seriously and give her unlimited opportunities.

Well, at least when Sam is in town.

And when he’s not distracted by more interesting things.

I hate being sick.  It would be nice to have it as an excuse that it makes me delirious and hallucinogenic (or that the drugs I taking do), but I’m never that sick.  I usually only get sick enough to be cranky and bitchy and tired (which are either two or three of the unloved Dwarves, I believe).

So, when the current Mary Worth story continues to crawl at a glacier’s pace (I’m not even going to grace this by saying that the plot is advancing — at least glaciers that that in their favor), I notice, and I get even more annoyed by it than I usually do.  Other serials have a similar slow-pacing, but gee whiz! Don’t think that you can keep a reader’s attention, week after week, by only changing the word order around or flipping the panels!  Folks want variety! Intellectual challenge!  Philosophical quandaries!  Ethical dilemmas!

Okay, “eye-candy” works, too.

…I’m getting to the point that I think any story would be improved by the presence of a vampire.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Thank you, and good night.

Ah…maybe not.

It seems that Dixie Julep, stripper and murderess, has joined the Choir Invisible.  Not surprising, in the land of Sheriff Joe Arpaio — after all, she was armed with a knife vs. the entire metropolitan SWAT team of Scottsdale, with Mesa and Phoenix and Glendale and Tempe, and the 20 other Valley of the Sun communities likely thrown in.

Dang.

I’d like to think that there was an alternative…

I can’t even begin to condense the current storyline in 9 Chickweed Lane, other than Amos has to perform AGAIN for the big-shot who-the-hell-cares cello competition in Belgium, and it was tooth-pulling and eye-gouging enough the first time around.

As for the shenanigans in Judge Parker, pole dancer cum murderer Dixie has escaped from an entire SWAT team AND a rattlesnake.  If she weren’t batshit crazy, she’d probably be fun to hang around with.  I suspect she’ll come to no good end, but you know that redemption thing…

Just so we’re all up to speed, Dixie Julep is not only a stripper … she’s a murderer!  Not only did she kill her sugar daddy Dewey Cheatem, but his gofer guy, too!  In an attempt to kidnap Sam and make him drive her to Mexico, Sam’s hotel room was swarmed by the SWAT team and Sam was rescued.  Meanwhile, Dixie escaped by body-blocking a SWAT member and crashing through a window, in a hailof Det. Heidi’s bullets!

Whew!

If Dixie weren’t such a menace to society, she’d be a candidate for Jungle Patrol, as would Heidi, providing she could continue wearing her cocktail dress as her official uniform.

Oh, and as an aside, the following Sunday panel is my favorite one of Det. Heidi.  The colors and shading is great, and she is drawn so well — so pretty and pensive.

(And then, I go and ruin it with re-captions… 🙂

*Ask me about that some time…

Instead of decorating for the holidays, I’m admiring some of the great illustration work by Eduardo Barreto for Judge Parker.  (Someone over at the Comics Curmudgeon praised him, and I agree, that his characters are consistently drawn and readily identifiable, something that’s a challenge for some cartoonists.) This is the 2 November 2008 Sunday panel.  Aside from messing with the logo a bit, the only modification is replacing old dialog for new — no word balloons were added or removed, I just worked with what was given to me.

I think this has the potential for a swell party game.

Okay, so I don’t get invited to many parties.

This particular episode isn’t very exciting, unless you’ve got season tickets for Exposition Theatre.  Still, information has to be passed on, and a number of folks at CC were quite intrigued by Dixie Julep’s true identity.

(WHAT?! She said Dixie Julep was her real name! How dare she lie and impugn the good name of strippers everywhere!)

It could’ve only been better if the writer of Judge Parker had dared to call her April Patterson… (“Sure, Lynne, sure!  Using one of your characters’ names is bound to increase traffic and rebound syndication numbers of your new piece of crap “re-imagining”!”)